


between here and there

by laratoncita



Category: Sex Education (TV)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Caretaking, Ficlet, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Growing Up, Mother-Daughter Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-02
Updated: 2019-08-02
Packaged: 2020-07-19 06:40:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19969669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laratoncita/pseuds/laratoncita
Summary: Ola is young when her mother dies.





	between here and there

> I thought the earth  
> remembered me, she  
> took me back so tenderly...
> 
> By morning  
> I had vanished at least a dozen times  
> into something better.
> 
> _Sleeping In the Forest_ , Mary Oliver

Ola is young when her mother dies. Not young enough to not know what it means, but young like she’s not ready to be motherless. Karin still says it, sometimes, when she’s feeling melancholy, back home from school for break and smoking a cigarette on the back stoop.

 _She lived long enough to raise you,_ she says. _She stayed exactly as long as she needed to._

Ola doesn’t think that’s true. She still needs a mother. She’ll _always_ need a mother. She thinks that’s what childhood is all about. About needing someone who’s supposed to be there forever. It can’t be something that can be turned on or off, not like her sister seems to think.

Karin had already left for university when the doctors said there wasn’t anything to do but make their mother comfortable, so that’s what Ola did. Took care of her mother when her father wasn’t home and then when he was, took care of him. Sometimes, Ola felt alone, even with her parents’ voices vibrating through the walls. Karin might as well have been a thousand miles away.

She doesn’t hold it against her sister. She’s back now, after all, working at the same primary the two of them went to. They help take care of their father _together_ , now. And that’s fine. She does it gladly, picking him up from jobs and arguing with him over what is and isn’t appropriate with certain boys’ mothers.

It feels like she’s caught between two spaces, lately. Like she’s suddenly outgrown the role of care-taking. Karin tells her she’s not cut out for it—not for cashiering, not for nursing, not for being anything other than who she is. Ola doesn’t know what that is, though. Karin won’t give her any hints besides that.

She knows certain things about herself are true, at least. She’s good at school. She’s a good daughter, past and present. She likes Otis Milburn, a _lot_ , and she’s not quite sure what she’s supposed to do about it. For so long it’s been her and her dad—the best duo alive, a team, the whole world, just the two of them. It just feels different, lately.

Different for a lot of reasons, though. Otis Milburn alone is not responsible for this in-betweenness. It’s a feeling that’s been building up, and it’s not one that can be shared, is the thing. When her mother died it was a cracked-openness. An aching empty feeling. But growing up has made it go away, or at least lessened the pain. Now she’s sixteen and the whole world feels new. She doesn't recognize herself always, and when she does, she's not sure she likes it.

Karin says it’s normal; their father, though he makes it clear he’s a little confused about it all, still teases her the way he always has, telling her to stop flirting and get in the car. She does the same for him, so it’s only fair that they’re in this together.

Maybe they won’t always be together like this—a family coming back again, building themselves up into something new but not better—but for now, it’s enough. Her mother doesn’t haunt them but she’s still there. It’s the most that Ola can ask for, and sometimes, she thinks it’s all she’ll ever need.


End file.
